New Western History

¶ … American West as a Place Rather than a Process

The American West was a place in time and history that continues to affect our daily lives. but, as traditional historians such as Fredrick Jackson Turner have asserted, the West as a process exists as a series of philosophical shifts in how we understand the past - which no longer appears to be an adequate method of understanding the unfolding of events, people, currents, and changes that resulted in Colonization, expansion, and the domination of the American continent by the white Europeans. Exploring the history of the American West requires enquiry, surely, but is it a first-order enquiry that looks at the sequence of events as Patricia Nelson Limerick promotes (in the Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West) or a second-order enquiry that examines the context in which historians approach and comprehend the material of history? Modern historical philosophy has rightly sought to shed the second-order type of enquiry because it relies too much upon interpretation of interpretations, it uses context over substance, and it prevents an unadulterated view of events prior to interpretation. Her take on history is evident in the title of the book. By using the word "unbroken," Limerick is clearly stating that, in her work, we will encounter a factual representation of the events as they happened and not an extrapolated interpretation of events on the part of someone who could not legitimately place herself within the exact context of those events and thus attempt an interpretation (as was the case so often with the traditionalists like Turner). It is the purpose of this essay, then, to expand upon this argument that puts Limerick among the historians employing the first-order historical examination - look at the rocks and tell me what the rock is, not what it looks like or what role it might have had, just what the rock is and does right now.

If we look at the history of the American West as Limerick does, we immediately see marked differences between her work and the traditionalists. First, Limerick asserts that the history of the American West began with the first settlers on the continent and has continued to today - rather than ending in 1890 with the onset of the American industrial revolution and the completion of Westward expansion on the continent as many other historians have noted. This means that, in her work, the West exists as a continuity of events that continue to build upon each other. The traditionalist view looks at the shift from agrarian economies and the land-expansion bonanza of the late 1800's as the end of the Western era with its associations (in their mind) with Cowboys and Indians, with '49ers and the end of the Missions, and with the realization of Manifest Destiny. This view, however, fails in Limerick's mind, to adequately show how we can directly trace our current social, economic, and political order to Jamestown, Salem, and the Louisiana Purchase. "White Americans saw the acquisition of property as a cultural imperative" (Limerick, 55). How has that changed either before or after? Isn't that the justification used by the Virginia Company when establishing Jamestown? Isn't that the same as Sam Houston's justification for the subjugation and annexation of Texas? Isn't that the same as our ongoing destruction of the environment to create homes, shopping malls, and warehouses? Manifest Destiny existed in the European mindset even before the phrase was coined. Thus, Limerick observes that we have to see our history as part of that same kind of continuity of intent.